Metaphony and Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico in plural nouns in the dialect of Airola

This paper aims to give an overview and an analysis of metaphony and Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico in the southern Italian dialect of Airola. The two processes affect the nominal class of the dialect. In particular, they are both attested in plural forms. Nevertheless, they never co-occur in the same plural noun and appear to have acquired a morphological distinctive value. In fact, metaphony can only take place in masculine nouns, while Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico is attested in feminine plural ones. They are two distinct phenomena, one being phonological and the other being phono-syntactic, and they developed separately. Yet, synchronically speaking, they happen to represent gender distinction.